Sexuality is Fluid
by S-Michael
Summary: Jay and Ed...grow close.


**AN:** Someone was eventually going to write a yaoi (for the uninitiated: male slash, only not _necessarily_ R-rated) fic about this series eventually, and it might as well be me, because (1) it means I actually get to be the first at something—yay! (2) I'm comfortable enough with my sexuality to do so, and (3) I haven't actually written a yaoi fic since the early days of my career here, when I thought the words "slash" and "fan fiction" were interchangeable. (Also for the uninitiated: the femslash version is called yuri.)

Sexuality is Fluid

S-Michael

"Hey, Cat. Sam," Jay said.

"Everything okay at home?" Cat asked.

"It's slow going since I, you know, slept with Frankie. In fact, would it be alright if I crashed on your couch for a couple days?" Jay asked.

"Sure," Cat said.

"Don't you have any male friends you can stay with?" Sam asked.

"Nah, I have a tendency to sleep with their girlfriends. Or sisters. Or mothers," Jay said. "I'm not really sure what the point of male friends is, anyway; I don't make friends with people I don't want to sleep with on some level."

"What about Ed? Isn't he your friend?" Cat asked.

Jay shrugged. "I'm comfortable with my sexuality."

"Uh-huh," Sam said. "Still, it would probably be for the best if you bunked with him. I'm not sure Becky would appreciate you staying with other women."

"But you're lesbians," Jay pointed out.

"It's more of an instinctual thing," Sam said. "Besides, you did just sleep with the butchest girl in your circle of friends. That'll make the rest of us suspect in her eyes."

Jay sighed. "Maybe you're right. Well, see you guys later, I guess." He left.

"Do you really think that's true about Becky?" Cat asked.

"Idunno. But we've only just moved in together, and I just don't want anyone else moving in, at least until _after_ we've had sex on every flat surface in this apartment."

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Ed opened his door. "Hey," Jay said. "My fiancé kicked me out. Can I crash on your couch?"

"Sure, I guess," Ed said.

"Thanks. I'll just throw this in a closet somewhere," Jay said as he picked up his duffel bag and did exactly that.

"So, what do you want to talk about?" Ed asked awkwardly.

"Know anything about architecture?"

"Not much. What do guys normally talk about?"

"Like I'd know," Jay said. "Probably sports, or something else vaguely homoerotic."

"How vaguely?"

"We could talk about porn. Don't you hate when a perfectly good girl-on-girl scene is ruined by some guy walking in and joining them?"

"I've always found that the use of toys displayed is a bit unrealistic," Ed ventured.

"Yeah, I know, right? It's like, how stupid do you think my penis is, anyway?"

"…This is dumb. Let's just watch the telle."

"Yeah, you're right," Jay allowed.

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"I've never realized how very little Jay and I have in common until now," Ed complained. "In fact, I don't think we've ever been in a room alone together, or had a conversation about anything that didn't involve one or more of the rest of you somehow."

"It's just for a couple days," Tess reassured him. "Until Becky either takes him back or lets him go for good, and he find a new place."

"Ugh. Don't remind me that that possibility exists," Ed said, resting his head on her shoulder. "I don't really want him hanging around for weeks, scanning the 'for rent' section of the papers."

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Ed entered the kitchen, groggy and in only his boxers. He began putting tea on, but decided that coffee would be better this morning. He turned around and saw Jay looking at him. "What?"

Jay snapped out of it. "Oh, sorry. It's just been a while, what with Becky kicking me out and all."

"O_kay_…" Ed went back into his bedroom and got dressed. When he came back out, Jay was cooking. "You don't have to do that."

"No, it's best to stay in practice, you know?" Jay said.

"Hey, Jay?" Ed probed.

"Yeah?"

"Are we friends?"

"Why, what did Cat tell you?"

"What?"

"Nothing. Why do you ask?"

"Well, this is the longest amount of time we've ever spent together, we don't have much in common, and we really don't talk about much other than the girls. It's beginning to seem like we're not so much friends as we are be friends-of-friends who just so happen to have about a dozen mutual friends," Ed said.

"Ed," Jay patted him on the shoulder, "of _course_ we're friends. Okay? Let me finish making this stir-fry, and then how about you tell me about your latest project now that your book's going to be big."

Jay served it up on two plates, and set them on the coffee tables. Ed picked up his plate and began to eat. "So, about your thing?" Jay asked.

"Hmm? Oh. Well, I've got this idea I've been kicking around. A supernatural type of thing."

"Mm-hmm," Jay prompted.

"Well, it starts with this guy whose in love with this girl, only she's a lesbian—"

"Can't imagine where you got the inspiration for _that_ one."

"Quite."

"Is he a writer?"

"Hell, no. Every time I read a book where the main character is a writer, I always immediately think 'author avatar.'"

"Isn't he, though?"

"Yes, but that doesn't mean I want to be so _obvious_ about it. Anyway, he's hopelessly in love with this girl, and then he sees this ad in the paper looking for someone to volunteer for a male-to-female body swap involving some sort of voodoo magic, and he figures, sure, why not? What does he have to lose, right?"

"Mm-hmm."

"So he does it, and it works, and for a while things are good. But then he randomly runs into the woman he swapped with," Ed continued his narrative.

"Shouldn't you be swapping out the pronouns?"

"No, 'cause see, neither of them are actually transgendered—he swapped so that he could be with Te—I mean the lesbian, but _she_ swapped because she's one of those religious nut jobs and couldn't actually force herself straight at those brainwashing camps they have. So they meet, she calls him a sinner, and then he's angsting because any kids she have will be his genetically, and he doesn't want his kids raised in that craziness."

"Why would a religious fanatic be willing to use black magic?" Jay asked.

"Frankly, in my experience, fundamentalists can justify just about _anything_," Ed said. He waved his hand in the air, "Saying it's the lesser sin or the will of God are always good ones."

"Yeah, that's pretty much true. This sounds quite a bit more political than your last book."

Ed shrugged. "Some anvils need to be dropped."

"So what happens next?" Jay asked.

"Spoilers," Ed said.

"C'mon," Jay pleaded.

"Well, alright. What happens is, the hero decides he can't let his potential children be raised by psychos, so he demands to be switched back to his old body. She says no, rationalizing it by saying, yeah, he's sinning against God, but she's not anymore, so that's a neutral net profit, as it were, and since she'll be having children one day and raising them in proper God-fearing ways while he won't be having kids to raise in profane ways, it's actually a gain for God."

"Mm-hmm."

"Well, there's a fight. Then, I don't know, something. Well, long story short, he eventually finds the spell to reverse the first spell, so he's back in his own body. Which is both the good news and the bad news, on account of his girlfriend's a lesbian. They try it once, but it doesn't work for her, so she says she'll wait for him while he gets a sex change operation."

"Why didn't he just do that from the beginning?"

"Well, in real life it's not like it is in movies. It takes months of hormone therapy before you undergo the operation, and you have to pass a psychological evaluation," Ed said.

_He's looked into this,_ Jay thought. He knew he had strong feelings for Tess, but to literally sacrifice his balls for a chance to be with her? Just wow. "So then they live happily ever after, right?"

"It's implied," Ed said. "Of course, stories have no true end, only the place where the storyteller no longer feels like talking."

"So what does the guy do? Is he a writer?"

"Hell, no. As a writer, whenever I see a story where the main character is a writer, my immediate thought is 'author avatar.'"

"But he _is_ an author avatar," Jay pointed out.

"Yes, but I'm not bloody well going to announce it to God and the world," Ed said.

"You know, sexuality is fluid," Jay said.

"So I like to believe," Ed said. "Not fluid enough, though, for my liking."

"Some people are more fluid than others, but there's an exception to every rule."

"Too bad _I'm_ not the exception to Tess' homosexuality." Ed sighed. "If everyone were bi, would that be such a bad thing? You, me, everybody. Think about it; no barriers, so anyone can love anyone else. What a beautiful world that would be."

"Let's find out," and Jay kissed him.

Ed kissed back reflexively for a moment, then pushed him away. "Jay! Man! _You've got a fiancé!_ Also, you're a guy."

"You're the one who was just talking about bisexuality."

"I need some air," Ed said, and ran out.

Jay reclined against the couch. _First Frankie, now Ed._ "I'm a _horrible_ boyfriend."

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"He kissed you?" Tess asked. "Did you like it?"

"Well…yeah, I guess. I don't know. It's weird," Ed said.

"Are you attracted to him?" Tess asked.

"Maybe. I mean, there have been thoughts, here and there, 'If I were gay, I'd totally tap that,' sort of thing," Ed said. "I thought he was straight, though."

"There's an exception to every rule."

"And we just so happen to be each other's exception? That's a bit of a contrived coincidence," Ed said.

"Maybe it's a higher power or something," Tess suggested.

"I don't really like the idea of a deity meddling with my love life. I mean, I'm a writer; I know the sorts of things all-powerful beings do with their creations when they're bored."

"Well, it's got to be healthier than pining after me all the time."

"But he has a fiancé," Ed protested.

"Oh, right; it's easy to forget that, sometimes," Tess said. "Well, never mind, then."

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Ed went home and saw Jay hunched over on the couch, staring at the beer in his hand. "What's wrong?"

"It's over," Jay said. " Becky dumped me. I don't really blame her. I'm a horrible boyfriend. I'm a horrible man."

"Oh, come on, no you're not. You're a great guy," Ed said.

"And as a boyfriend?" Jay asked.

"…"

"Exactly."

"C'mon, Jay. You're just pushing yourself farther and faster than you're ready to go at this time, and it's making you fray around the edges."

"So basically, I'm just not grown up enough to be married. Super," Jay said despondently.

"Jay, I…"

"I realize that I'm considered to be a player, though I've never been fond of that word."

"Some sort of feminist thing?" Ed asked.

"Nah. I just didn't like the implication that it actually takes _skill_. I mean, come on, if you ask enough women to have sex with you, eventually one of them is going to say 'yes,' provided you're not much uglier than they are. All you need is persistence and a bit of charisma. Of course, whenever I tell a lad this, his response is usually 'But you have to be good looking to get the hot women, according to your strategy,' and I'm sitting there thinking 'Hypocritical much?'—but that's neither here nor there. What I'm saying is, I know I'm a 'player,' I've just never considered myself to be a…"

"A lad," Ed supplied.

"A _lad,_ yes," Jay said bitterly. "The whole lad lifestyle has always struck me as homoerotic."

"To be fair, you _are_ running on a whole different set of protocols where other males are competition to be defeated, and tend to think of friendship as a sexual bond."

Jay stared at him.

"Don't look at me like that, it's obvious—I once based an entire alien race off of you, as a matter of fact," Ed said.

"Oh, God, this is going to be good."

"The whole civilization was built by the females because you couldn't get two males together in a room without them trying to kill each other. The other races don't like the males much, either, because they give off a pheromone that causes ukeification in humanoid males."

"Huh?"

"Sorry, trope-speak," Ed said. "What happens is that the pheromone causes males to become not just homosexual, but…pliant. Also sterility, but that's not part of the 'uke' thing."

Jay grinned. "So the creature based on me causes guys to go gay and submissive. That is really suggestive."

"Don't read too much into it."

"No?"

"No. I'm not submissive."

Jay laughed. "Let's find out," and he kissed him. Ed felt Jay's tongue in his mouth, and kissed back. He closed his eyes and pushed Jay back onto the couch, beginning to undo all those annoying buttons on Jay's shirt. Jay's arms were wrapped around him—and then weren't. Jay pushed him away. "I'm sorry, it's just…"

"Yeah, you just broke up today, it's cool," Ed said, almost managing to contain the frustration in his voice.

"I should find another place," Jay said.

"Alright."

"I'll get my things." Jay got up and walked towards the closet.

"Hey," Ed said. "Tess had this crazy idea that the fact that we're attracted to each other—and only each other, as far as guys are concerned—means that the gods are telling us that Azathoth wants us to make man-babies, or some such thing. That's not a direct quote, obviously. The point is, well, how about I call you in a couple weeks, see if you don't want to go see a movie, or some such clichéd nonsense."

Jay snorted. "'Man-babies'?"

"Hey, Azathoth _is_ the Blind Idiot God Who Created the Universe by Accident—learn your Cthulhu Mythos."

"Sounds nice. But you better make it three weeks, to be safe."

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"You made out with Jay? What happened next?" Tess asked.

Jay appeared in the doorway. "Next we made hot, passionate monkey love, and the weird thing is, he called out _your_ name."

"That didn't happen!"

"Yeah, well, can't blame me for dreaming."

"You were the one who didn't want to take it any further."

Jay sobered up. "Yeah, I know. Anyhow, I got my things out of your place."

Ed sighed through his nose, "Duly noted." Jay nodded, and left.

"Did you guys have a fight?" Tess asked.

"Nah, it's just too soon for him, what with this whole Becky thing. We've got a sort-of date sort-of scheduled somewhere down the line."

"Ah. It's probably better in the long run, so as to not taint this relationship," Tess said. "Think you can stand the wait?"

Ed snorted. "This is me we're talking about, the guy who hasn't had sex in more than a year because he's just so infatuated with you; I could wait with folded hands for Judgment Day." Which was a weird thing to be bragging about, but he sort of was.

"Well, that's alright, then."

Ed nodded. "Hey. Whatever happens, you know you'll always be my best mate, right?"

"Of course," Tess said.

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The phone rang; Jay answered.

"Hey there, you," Ed said. "It has been two weeks to the date we almost made out, exactly."

"Didn't I say three, to be safe?"

"I like to live dangerously."

Jay laughed. "Alright, then, what do you want to do?"

"What, you mean aside from coming over there and ripping your clothes off? Well, there's this place…"

**FIN**

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**Author's Commentary:**

Presuming I haven't been quick draw-ed over the Christmas weekend (my local library was closed from Friday to Monday and their wifi antenna seems to have fallen in a snowstorm or something, so, long story short, no internet acess (also why I've only watched five _and a half_ episodes of the show)) and I didn't miss one in the eight LS fics there were at the time, this is the first LS yaoi fic (and therefore best so far).

For a while, I wondered just how much "But—but—but—I'm not _gay!_" there should be, and as you can tell if you've read this far, I ended up going with "none." The way I figure it, they believe that sexuality is fluid on the one hand, so being attracted to one dude doesn't necessarily make one gay or even really bi, and literally all their friends that we're aware of are gay women on the other, so they're aware that gayness is not the end of the world (I'm assuming a bunch of lesbians wouldn't hang out with a couple of those jerkoffs who think lesbianism doesn't "count" because there's no penis involved). Granted, anyone who thinks that human behavior is predominantly logical obviously hasn't been on the planet long, but every once in a great while you find someone who is capable of connecting the dots.

So yeah. Also, the plot Ed was talking about is actually one I'm kicking around for a fic with him in it, so, spoilers. Too late? You probably shouldn't worry about it, though—I only end up writing about one tenth of my story ideas. It's nice working with Ed; he's an author, so I get to have him hand a lampshade on everything. And Jay reminds me of one of my own characters from an original fiction work I haven't gotten around to writing yet. Damn ADD. As for why I wrote this, why the hell not?

Anyway, R&R, please.


End file.
